Family Trees ABRAHAM DAYNES of New London WILLIAM DEINS of Taunton JOHN DANE SR.of Roxbury DEANS of Ireland My DAINES Branch JOHN DOANE of Eastham WILLIAM DAINES of Norfolk
Other Pages in this site BURIAL RECORDS FAMILY PHOTOS FAMILY REUNION HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS EXPLORING NORTH AMERICA SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION FAMILY CREST SALEM WITCH TRIALS FAMILY LORE
Collateral Connections THE HOWE FAMILIES: Daniel of Lynn 1631 & Long Island 1640; Abraham of Watertown and Marlborough; Edward of Watertown 1634; brothers: James Sr. of Roxbury 1637 and Abraham of Roxbury 1638; Edward of Lynn 1636; John of Sudbury 1640; Samuel of Concord 1642; Daniel of Boston 1651; WILLIAM MUNROE FAMILY GOSNOLD FAMILY WILLIAM LUDDINGTON FAMILY of Malden and New Haven
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FAMILY LORE: THE GREY AREA
The Legend of Micah Rood http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctnewlon/MicahRood.htm
The Danish deserter story: A Family Oral Tradition: The Letters of Olive Taylor Ruffner
In a letter written to my father nearly 60 years ago, Olive Taylor Ruffner wrote about her search for the Dains ancestry.
In her first letter dated September 8, 1964, Olive mentions her mother's name (Susie Dains Taylor) and gives specific dates relating to her grandparents and then her Great Grandparents, Ebenezer Dains m.Catherine P. Dewitt. She also mentions Jacob Beard Dains and their children. In this letter, she tells the story of Jacob Beard Dains, the blacksmith, who served in the War of 1812 from October 20, 1812 through February, 1813. He was a private and paid $6.66 a month and was allowed 41 cents travel allowance for each 15 miles from his home. Jacob collected $3.10 travel money, which indicates he was about 133 miles from his point of discharge to his home.
A second letter, dated October 17, 1964, traced the Dains ancestry to an Acia (Asa) Dains, who married Polly Nye. Olive state that the original Dains ancestor was Asa and that he was a deserter from the Danish king. She states that a Mary Pullin, daughter of William Dains and Athalinda (Reed) Dains, told her that her Grandfather Ebenezer [ m. Catherine Pearl Dewitt] said that his Great-Grandfather was Asa, and that he was a soldier for the King of Denmark. Defeated in battle Asa had to run for his life-slipped aboard a ship in the harbor at night, was in the hold among the casks for three days with nothing but water, eventually got to America-and this in the early 1700's!
Olive also tells the story of an unnamed Great-Grandfather "bound out" as a blacksmith. The master sent a colored woman to watch over him, and he set her upon a hot anvil, whereupon she took off to parts unknown!!!
Another story Olive relates is that of an ANNA, aged 4 lost in the woods overnight, found, but died a few days later.
She lastly tells the sad story of Catherine Pearl Dewitt's brother, unnamed, who was scalped by the Indians.
View the original text at Olive's First Letter View the second follow up letter at Olive's Second Letter
Webmaster's comments and notes regarding the aforementioned letters from Olive and upon further examination of the contents therein and the "facts" as I understand and presume them to be, I have gleaned the following:
We now know that Abraham Daynes was here sixty years prior to the Asa Dains to whom Olive refers, so what I have tried to do is fill in the gaps, and we know that historically the "battle" may have been for Manhattan 1664. Abraham first appears in Maine in 1663/64 at which time, Maine was part of Massachusetts. Maine was not granted a Charter until after the colonial period (Andrews,67). North Yarmouth, Barnstable County, Maine and Casco, Maine are two places from where it is said that Abraham Daynes originated. In the maps of Colonial New England, it is clear to see that Yarmouth was in Plymouth Colony, whose Charter was granted as Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620's and Casco Bay near Portsmouth, looks like Rhode Island to me- a hop, skip, and jump, by boat, from Boston. Or could it be that Abraham was captured by the pirates (or was a pirate) and escaped to New York?
We also know that Deborah Munroe was married to Ebenezer Dains and her sister, Mary Munroe married Ebenezer's brother Benejah Dains. Debora and Mary's lineage descends from a William Munroe, born 1625 Scotland, who was shipped to America aboard the John and Sarah, Nov. 1, 1651, as a prisoner of war after surviving the Battle of Worcester 3 Sept 1650. The battle was fought between the adherents to King Charles I, known as Royalists or Cavaliers and consisting of the nobility, gentry, and clergy, and the Parlimentarians or Roundheads, consisting of the townsmen and yeoman (Robotti, 23). The Ironsides were the mounted forces of Oliver Cromwell, who, in 1653, was declared Lord Protector of the British Commonwealth (Robotti, 25). Oliver Cromwell died in 1660, his son, Richard Cromwell abdicated, and Charles II ascended to the English throne in the restoration of the Stuarts (Robotti, 26). A Daniel Howe, apparently a Royalist, was transported as a prisoner of war in the same ship as the Munroe brothers: William, Robert, Hugh and John Munroe. William Munroe reached Cambridge Farms, now Lexington, Mass in 1652 and remained there until his death in 1717. William Munroe was of lineal descent from Donald, founder of the clan Munro, who is said to have come, with his adherents, from Ireland to Scotland in 1025 to assist King Malcolm in his war with the Danes. [ FTW Family Histories of New England Families #1 1600-1800 CD #117 See: Descendants of Munroe's of Lexington, p. 577] William Munroe was made freeman in 1690 and married three times: first wife- Martha George; second wife-Mary Ball; third wife-Elizabeth Johnson. The births of his children are recorded in Lexington and all but David Munroe remained there. David Munroe was born October 6, 1680 in Cambridge Farms, now Lexington, baptized in 1699, and died in Canterbury, Windham County, CT on June 19, 1755. David Munroe married Deborah Howe born on Oct. 19, 1685 and died on September 1, 1748. Deborah Howe was daughter of Samuel Howe and Mary (Nutting) and granddaughter of William Howe and Mary Farmer, great granddaughter of Edward Howe and Elizabeth Marvill, immigrant ancestors aboard The Truelove, and great great granddaughter to William Howe who married Mary Maria Newman. David and Deborah (Howe) Munroe had several children among them Mary Munroe who married Benejah Dains and Deborah Munroe who married Ebenezer Dains who were Abraham Daynes' grandsons. While this provides a tenuous link to the story of the "deserter", in examining carefully the generational claims of Mary Pullin, who related the story of the deserter to Olive Taylor Ruffner, the time sequence fits back to Great Great Grandfather, William Munroe, who Mary Pullin named Asa. Mary Munroe, Deborah's sister, married Benejah Dains and had a son Asa Dains, though he was not the first Dains to be in New England. See the following hyperlink WILLIAM MUNROE FAMILY TREE
NOTE: [An Asa Dains/Dean, (age 14) was in the militia in the Revolution in Sullivant's Expedition in 1778. He served as a privateer aboard the "Oliver Cromwell" in 1780. He served as regular under the command of his uncle, Benjamin Durfee, in 1782. He was discharged August 12, 1873, just before Yorktown, where his father, Sgt. Ebenezer "Zerry" Dains was serving with the 8th Huntington, later federalized as the 1st Connecticut. This Asa moved to Belpre, Ohio in 1793, and was one of the first two settlers of Orange Township, Meigs County, Ohio. He was a carpenter and millwright and built, on the largest island in the Ohio River, an oppulent mansion for Harman and Margaret Blennnerhasset.] This Asa Daines' father was Ebenezer Dains who married Deborah Munroe. The mansion has been restored.
It was at this time that the notorious Captain Kidd was pirating the high seas and the lower Hudson [Goodwin, 180] Other Pirate Captains were Edward Coates, Thomas Tew. In England they were referred to as "buccaneers", by the Hollanders, " zee rovers" , and by the French, "flibustiers" [Goodwin,168].
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